Ways to Pretend That You're Fine, When You Aren't
My grandma has been a constant source of light all my life.
She’s one of those people who, if they’re around, you feel your problems disappear. It doesn’t help that if you look at her, you see my mother, and then see me. She’s everything I am not, and though I don’t see her every day, I feel connected to her.
So, imagine the devastation I felt when I received news that she had passed on. The first thing that came to my mind was no, she’s not. Why would an enigma’s life end? And why was it so sudden?
The crazy thing about the human brain is that it scrambles to create a new reality, especially when you experience something life-changing.
In no time, you'll see what your new reality will look like and the part you’ll have to play. Then it starts charting paths of solutions to yes, help you accept this new reality, but also help you find ways to cope.
That’s exactly what happened to me yesterday.
If you’ve been on the internet, seen people, or heard of stories about coping with grief, the usual terminology includes ‘take all the time you need to grieve,’ ‘it’s okay to feel however you’re feeling,’ ‘their memory will live on,’ ‘they lived a long, healthy life,’ all in an effort to be comforting.
What’s never said is that these feelings don’t kick in immediately. You have to sit in the wave of emotions, from feeling guilty for laughing when your grandma is lifeless to crying at a random thing that reminds you of her to continuing with your day, because life does, in fact, not wait for you to take a minute.
Instead of processing my new reality, I went into distractions, because what’s better than choosing every other thing, rather than actually dealing with what’s going on? I mean, people grieve differently, right? This is what I did.
Clean obsessively
Since I am a 30-something-year-old incapable of processing anything but joy, my default when I’m going through something difficult is to clean.
Scrub and wash everything until your hands bleed, your skin gets wrinkled from water, or, my personal favorite, you strain your back.
You cannot be crying and in a dirty (which wasn’t ever even dirty in the first place) space. You have to pick one.
Upbeat music
Do not listen to sad songs. Learn from me, I did. My go-to is usually Imagine Dragons.
Pick a peppy playlist. This doesn’t guarantee that you will not cry. I tried doing it and ended up looking at a wall for over an hour; I wasn’t even paying attention to what was playing.
Silence
Don’t talk to people, don’t even look at them or think about them.
What’s the point? You cannot pretend to care about their nonsense during this time. You have more important things to worry about, such as carrying the emotional burden of everyone.
As a matter of fact, push people away. Become rude. Who cares.
Go numb
Numb yourself with the action of choice. This is new territory, and no one has a blueprint.
I haven’t gone through any stage of grief. I am still very much in denial that she’s gone and that I’ll never see her again. It sucks to lose an extension of yourself; it sucks even more picturing how your mom will live her life without her mom.
While I know it’ll get easier, the now is the worst part.
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